This Is What It's All About

Yesterday I was out walking and I'm watching the trail ahead of me. I see one guy on a bike in a purple shirt riding away from me. He'd just passed me a minute ago. Coming towards me is another person on a bike, wearing a shirt with a checkerboard pattern. I turned away, looked into the trees along the trail, and when I looked back the second biker was nowhere in sight. They hadn't passed me. They hadn't gotten off the trail, since going to their left would take them right through my line of sight, and going right would send them into the creek. Just gone, like a "glitch in the Matrix" moment. I think I might have been walking too much yesterday. That has nothing to do with the rest of the post, but I wanted to mention it. Also, I'm picking up Amazing Spider-Man #533 and X-Factor #8 tomorrow, so unless you normally buy (and enjoy those) leave 'em be, and I'll review those Civil War tie-ins for ya. Moving on.

As you may have deduced by now, I am enjoying Annihilation. Silver Surfer started slow, but has upped the ante considerably. Super-Skrull started awesome, and has slowed a bit, but is still a lot of fun. Nova's been steady, but also looks like it's going to wrap up in high gear. Ronan's been my personal weak point, as it doesn't seem to actually have much to do with Annihilation, but maybe that'll change this week.

Last month, I offered an idiotic reason for why I was enjoying Annihilation. Well, upon further reflection, I've divined the real force behind my enjoyment. Simply put, this series is what superhero comics are about to me. You've got a powerful force, that threatens countless numbers of innocent (and not-so-innocent) lives. And you've got heroes, or at least warriors, willing to stand in the evil's way, and try and stop it.

It isn't the heroes defending themselves against a bitter enemy out for revenge. It isn't the heroes dealing with a trio of whiners who feel that their heroic sacrifices are being wasted, so they want to retract them (Infinite Crisis). It certainly isn't heroes fighting with each other over legislation of all things (Civil War). No, it's a guy who wants to conquer and kill an entire universe because he feels it represents a threat to his power. And quite naturally, the protagonists aren't going to let that happen.

And that's what I like to read about (as you probably know, given the amount of bitching/ranting/complaining I've done about this kind of stuff previously), so I guess it makes sense that I'm having a rollicking good time.